


show me the way home

by singtome



Series: Adventures of Wingman and Glow Boy [2]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Fluff and Humor, Gay Mutant Road Trip, Getting Freaky in Skeevy Motel Rooms, Heartwarming Reunions, M/M, Semi-explicit sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singtome/pseuds/singtome
Summary: “No, no, no,” Thomas says between giggles, cupping Newt’s face in his warm hands – his cheeks are glowing white with mirth at Newt’s disposition, the absolute bastard – and kisses him on the tip of the nose to further smooth the damage. “No, I’m kidding. We’re taking Bertha instead.”They’re –Newt frowns, puzzled. “What the hell is a Bertha?”(Alternate: they road trip to Newt's family instead.)
Relationships: Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner)
Series: Adventures of Wingman and Glow Boy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606210
Comments: 12
Kudos: 102





	show me the way home

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of part-companion, part-follow up, part-epilogue for the first fic written as a part of the Maze Runner Secret Santa for 2019! I suggest reading that first, but if you've found yourself here and just want to indulge in two idiots in love driving across the country, I won't judge. 
> 
> Title from _Ilomilo_ by Billie Eilish, which doesn't strictly go with the story but I liked that particular line.

_

They decide to drive instead of flying.

_

“You’re spilling it,” Thomas says, and Newt blinks at the sound of his voice. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he is vaguely aware of the sound of water of the gushing kind, not like the waves below. Thomas clicks his tongue and rushes towards Newt, who curves back into reality when Thomas touches him.

“Newt, _careful_ ,” Thomas _tsks,_ reaching towards Newt’s overflowing mug with his bare hand, pulling it away, and Newt has half a brain to right the kettle, starting. A drop flies upwards and lands on his knuckle, making him wince. Thomas, palm soaked with boiling hot water, does not even flinch. “It’s hot,” he ends with, weakly.

Newt shakes his hand out. “No kidding.”

Thomas grabs a dishtowel from the drawer and begins dabbing at the benchtop. Then he evens out the overflowing mug and adds the tea bag and milk, setting it down for Newt on the table. “Where’s your head at?” Thomas asks him when they sit, blowing on his own cup of coffee as if he is any kind of danger of burning his tongue.

Newt sips his tea before answering. “Just nervous,” he says, which is an understatement.

Today he’d gotten a call from his superiors in Portland to let him know that they have found a temporary replacement for him and that his leave as requested has been approved. He will apparently be arriving tomorrow morning, which feels like far too little notice even if Newt and Thomas have been preparing for this trip for five weeks. Newt is to stay and show the temp the ropes for a day, and then he is off.

“Three days,” Thomas says, smile encouraging as he grips Newt’s hand, “That’s plenty of time to freak out and get it all out of your system. The open road can be very therapeutic.”

The ridiculousness of the statement is enough to startle a laugh out of Newt. 

_

“We’re all so excited for you,” Teresa tells him one night, her voice filled with unchecked enthusiasm that comes through poorly on his iPhone 2 and hurts his ears. In the background to accompany her statement are the cheers and _whoops_ of what sounds like Brenda and Minho, give or take a Harriet. “Are you excited?”

Newt sighs and rolls over on his pillow so that he is staring at the far wall where the flickering flame of the grapefruit scented candle Thomas bought him for their six-month anniversary casts its shadows (he is unsure as to why Thomas thinks he is obsessed with grapefruits).

“Yes, Teresa, I’m excited,” he drawls.

He pictures Teresa frowning on the other end. “You _don’t_ sound excited.”

“Yes, because it’s 3AM and you drunk dialled me.”

“You didn’t have to pick up.”

“Teresa,” Newt begins, patiently impatient.

“Sorry, I’m just –” Teresa huffs. Someone shouts boisterously, and there is a cat’s meow nearby. Newt shuts his eyes and tries not to imagine the background scene. “I’m just really happy for you.”

Newt rolls on to his back. His fingers toy with the woollen threads of the blanket she gave him all those months ago. “I appreciate it. Thank you. But I’d also appreciate –”

“A good night’s rest? I know. I _saw._ ” She laughs and it comes out like a hiccup. Newt resists the urge to snort. “Fine, fine. I’ll let you go. Talk to you in the morning?”

Newt rubs his eyes. “Of course.”

“Great. Okay _goodnight love you bye!”_ She hangs up. Newt groans, letting his phone slide from his grip, but can’t help the smile that forms on his lips.

_

The temp, Aris, comes preinstalled with a surprising amount of knowledge about lighthouses and how they operate, which makes Newt’s life a whole lot easier. Newt shows him around the lighthouse starting at the bottom and ending at his bedroom (which he’d spent an hour last night de-personalising, putting all his possessions into boxes for the time being, and changing the bedding) and the lantern room. Aris, like Newt had been two and a half years ago, is in absolute awe of the giant light.

(Last night Newt stood on the banister and allowed his wings to unfurl under the light of the new moon, shirt off but not feeling the chill. It’s a phenomenal feeling to not feel cold when his wings are outstretched, batting on either side of his body as he soars above the clouds. He’d had a vision, up there, of him and Thomas together; Thomas in his arms as they float, his arms outstretched like they’re his own set of wings.) 

He waits until he feels that Aris is settled in enough, which doesn’t take a particularly long amount of time. With his suitcase in hand, Newt takes one last look at his lighthouse – tall, white, sun-bleached, sits on the horizon like negative space on canvas – for a few weeks, and sets off to Thomas’ apartment.

_

Thomas jokes – although Newt did not know he was joking at the time, keep this in mind – that the two of them would make the whole journey on his beat-up fossil of a motorcycle. Thomas laughs at the more than likely horrifically distressed look on Newt’s face right after he tells him this.

“No, no, no,” Thomas says between giggles, cupping Newt’s face in his warm hands – his cheeks are glowing white with mirth at Newt’s disposition, the absolute bastard – and kisses him on the tip of the nose to further smooth the damage. Newt keeps his arms firmly crossed over his chest, unamused. “No, babe, I’m kidding. We’re taking Bertha instead.”

They’re –

Newt frowns, puzzled. “What the hell is a Bertha?” he asks, and twenty minutes later finds himself standing in front of Thomas’ line green Ford Cortina in all her vintage glory, sitting in the garage like a New Woman.

Newt turns to Thomas, who is gazing at the car like a proud parent, and asks, “She has a name, now?” and then, “Wait, since when is it fixed?”

“She’s always had a name,” Thomas says like Newt was meant to know this, leaning in through the driver’s side window to secure a pair of black and white fuzzy dice on the rear-view mirror. “George has been working on her for weeks like a machine. She’s good to go.”

Thomas gently rubs the roof of the car, smiling down softly at it. Months ago, Thomas confessed to Newt that this car was his grandfather’s, the only thing he left for Thomas before he passed. Newt slowly walks up behind him and clips his arms around Thomas’ waist, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his neck. Thomas sighs.

“I know I never met him,” Newt whispers, “but I know he would be so proud of you, Tommy.”

Thomas turns his head so that their noses brush, and presses a small kiss to the corner of Newt’s mouth.

_

It is roughly a twenty-two-hour drive to Colorado from Haven Bay, give or take an hour. Newt and Thomas plan a three-day trip. Thomas has the whole thing mapped out on his phone, who took one look at Newt’s paper map with a route outlined in red and scoffed (Newt keeps the map in the backseat out of spite). He also spent a couple of days scoping out motels along the route that are cheap enough for both of them to afford but also probably won't result in them being murdered, Hitchcock style.

So, they’re pretty prepared journey wise.

Afterward, however …

Newt distracts himself by listening to Thomas tell him all the new things he’s learnt from his mother about his abilities.

(A few weeks ago Newt went back to Thomas’ childhood home with him after he was done giving his parents the silent treatment for not telling him that his mother was a mutant, and making him think he was alone for two decades of his life. They assured him that it was never malicious, or that they never wanted to tell him, it’s just, well …

“It was a bet,” Amelia admitted, sitting across from her son and Newt across the coffee table, beside her husband, who looks equally as sheepish. 

Thomas simply stared at them. “What?”

“Something that started around when you were fourteen and went on for far too long, I’m ashamed to admit,” his father explained.

Newt sipped his tea, feeling like a fourth wheel, and wondered if he should excuse himself to the bathroom.

“A bet?” Thomas asked, “Between the two of you? To see how long it would take for me to figure it out? That you also glow?”

His mom makes a face. “Like your father said, honey. We’re deeply ashamed.”

Newt expected this confession to bring on another week of the silent treatment, and it looked a bit like his parents expected and accepted that, too. Instead, Thomas simply leant back on the plush sofa, expelling a deep breath, and asked, “Who won?”)

Thomas begins, “I can, like, shoot light out of my fingers.”

Newt’s memory flashes back to last year’s Christmas party, to Thomas’ mom sneezing and lighting up the Christmas tree. “Oh?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda cool.” He tells Newt how they lined up bottles in the back yard and practiced shooting. “I’m not very good at it.”

“Well,” Newt says, “practice makes perfect. Like learning to fly.”

Thomas takes his eyes off the road for a moment to grin at him. “Like learning to fly.”

_

“What if they think I’m not coming?” Newt asks, out of the blue, when they are eating lunch at a highway-side rest stop.

Thomas stops chewing his sandwich and stares at Newt over the picnic table. “Wha?”

Newt fiddles with the plastic wrapper of his own sandwich and says, “I mean it’s not like I could send a letter back to let them know we’re coming, or that I even got it. What if they think it got lost? Or that I don’t want to see them?”

“They don’t think that,” Thomas says. “They know you’re coming.”

“How do you know?”

Thomas can’t answer that question. They finish their lunch in silence.

_

Newt stands before the cracked and yellowed mirror of the motel room and watches his wings unfurl from beneath his skin. They come slowly, leisured, like waking up from a long nap, and Newt stretches them out and feels the joints crack, pull and shake. He rolls his head back and sighs, feeling it crack, as well. The wings span the length of the bathroom, great white and tipped with hints of silver, and touch the walls on either side. He feels the chill of the tile against them.

The light buzzes fluorescent above his head. Three tiny moths flitter around it.

Newt stretches and softly flaps them and it disturbs the moths, who scatter in fear. Newt moves one wing down and sees Thomas in the mirror, standing in the doorway.

“Hi,” Newt says, smirking.

“Hello there,” Thomas returns. His eyes are roving over Newt, who’s skin prickles over the unbashful stare. 

“Can I be of any assistance?” Newt asks, raising an eyebrow.

Thomas walks forward so that they are standing back and wings to chest, and Thomas slips his arms around the naked skin of Newt’s torso, his palm settling on his stomach. His thumb brushes the soft, translucent hairs there, and Newt barely suppresses a shiver. The feathers on his wings flutter for a moment and his cheeks pink. He is unsure whether or not Thomas notices.

“No,” Thomas says, lips brushing against the nape of Newt’s neck as he talks, “Just stand here looking gorgeous as always.”

“Can do,” Newt says, breathless. Thomas grins against his neck.

“God, I love you,” Thomas whispers almost desperately like it has been waiting sheathed in his chest for the moment when he can say it again. The words never fail to raise goosebumps on Newt’s skin. His hands are warm, _so warm,_ against his skin, making him feel light-headed and a little crazy.

He doesn’t think he will ever be used to the Warmth of Thomas, and doesn’t think he ever wants to.

“I love you too, firefly.”

Thomas laughs softly in his ear, pleased. The nickname is secretly one of his favourites (secretly because Newt is not supposed to know it, lest it give him too much power). It’s up there with _Sunshine,_ while a sarcastic _Glow Boy_ earns a swift _Fuck you_. No matter how tenderly Newt phrases it.

Thomas kisses the shell of his ear and then the skin just behind it, and Newt hums in appreciation. His head falls back on to Thomas’ shoulder and he moans louder when the warmth of Thomas’ hand slips lower down his abdomen and under the waistband of his pants to grip his cock, setting to work with slow, leisured strokes. Newt comes with a shudder, his face pressed into Thomas’ neck, just under his jaw, mouth open and slack.

His wings, toward the end of it, convulsed along with the rest of him and beat against the walls of the bathroom, loud enough to raise a few questions if anyone heard. 

Thomas murmurs, “ _Beautiful_ ,” and Newt thinks, desperately, he never wants this to end. 

_

They take the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway across Nevada. Newt watches the world go past out the window, over the arid hills of yellow dirt, shrubbery, and a lone tree. Beside him Thomas sings along to the radio, his hands tapping on the wheel in time with the beat. He switched over to a music station a few minutes ago, when the radio talk show they were listening to began a news segment about a recent Mutant sighting in Arizona.

The radio DJ read, “Says here witnesses were confused when a man who appeared to be on fire ran across one of the many tourist trails at the Grand Canyon. What! Sources say that the police and ambulances were called before Phoenix’s team of Supers appeared on the scene and began to open fire. The –”

This is when Thomas leant over and changed the station.

Now, he taps his fingers away at the steering wheel and Newt closes his eyes, head back against the headrest and enjoying the wind on his face as Thomas sings along to the radio.

“ _I can't write one song that's not about you_ _,”_ Thomas sings, “ _Can't drink without thinkin' about you.  
Is it too late to tell you that,”_ he turns to Newt and points a finger at him, dramatically, _“Everything means nothing if I can't have you ...”_

Newt catches the finger and squeezes it. Thomas laughs.

Thomas, Newt has learnt over the course of their relationship, enjoys signing whether it be on key, off key, or everything in between. His music tastes span a broad horizon of artists and songs Newt has never heard of, sparking hours of the two of them lounged on the floor or bed of Thomas’ apartment listening to new music. Music, Thomas told him once, is best appreciated when lying flat on your back with your eyes closed, preferably on the floor. 

After an hour of melting into Thomas’ living room rug, two beers in him while the soulful, melodic tones of Fleetwood Mac flowed over his body like warm ocean waves, Newt couldn’t help but think he had a point.

When the station loses its signal and they are forced to switch again, the look on Thomas’ face when Newt joins in with him while he’s belting the chorus of _The Chain_ is that of pride. 

_

“Thanks,” Newt says, accepting the bottle of water Thomas offers him with a smile. Thomas taps his own bottle against Newt’s like they’re making a toast and leans in to press a chaste kiss to his lips. Newt chases them when he pulls away.

The desert stretches out around them in, a flat plain of wheat coloured scattering of grass and distant mountains that lend themselves nicely to the blue sky and white fluffy cloud backdrop. They’d seen the rest stop approaching and Thomas announced he needed to stretch his legs. Now, sitting on top of a picnic table with Thomas leaning between his legs, kissing idly, Newt’s stomach rumbles.

Thomas laughs against his lips. “Time for lunch?”

“Maybe,” Newt murmurs, grinning. Across the road is a park, and in that park is a whole lot of people. Kids run around and shout as they play and there is a band playing on a small pop up stage. The smell of barbequed sausages and burger patties carries over the breeze to Newt’s nostrils, making him hungrier.

“Do you think they would mind if we joined?”

Thomas turns to squint at the park. “You mean crash the … kids' birthday party? Barbeque? Event? What’s happening over there?”

“Don’t see any party hats, nor a cake,” Newt muses. “We can go find out, and if they tell us to fuck off then we fuck off.”

Thomas hums and noses at Newt’s jaw. “You’re so sexy when you’re plotting to crash a possible kid's birthday party.”

Newt pushes Thomas off him with an eye roll and a chuckle but keeps their fingers entwined.

Much to both of their surprise, Newt and Thomas are greeted warmly when they enter the park.

“Hello!” an old man who sits by a table at the entrance calls out to them, “Welcome, gentlemen. We just started serving lunch so you’re just in time.”

“Awesome,” Thomas says, and Newt has to stop him from making an immediate beeline for a stack of buns and patties on a nearby picnic table.

“What’s going on here?” Newt asks the man.

“Charity fete!” he beams, “Help yourself to anything you like, but don’t forget to donate! You’ll see folks walking around with the blue tins everywhere, can’t miss ‘em.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you, sir.”

The man tips his hat at them – tips his _actual_ hat, that sits on his head and everything – and Newt allows Thomas to pull him away to find a free spot at one of the picnic tables. They’re happily chewing away at their burgers and sipping too-sour lemonade out of a paper cup, having slipped $10 each into one of the blue tins, when Thomas notices that there are no signs or banners displayed anywhere.

In hindsight, probably something they should have asked about before sticking money inside a tin held by a child with a wide, beaming smile and flowers in her hair.

“Hey, what charity is this all going to anyway?” Thomas asks generally to the open air and is answered by a woman at the picnic table on Newt’s left.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, wiping her hands on a napkin, “They had issues with the banners. A spelling error, I think, but look –” she points to a spot behind Newt’s head, and they both turn to follow it, “they’re putting the new one up now.”

And –

Newt slowly places his half-eaten burger down on the paper plate and says to Thomas, “What time are we supposed to be at your mum’s, again?”

Thomas takes a moment, his face gone pale, but he catches on. “Soon. We should get going, she’s probably wondering where we are.”

They stand.

Another woman, older, from the same table as the other, “You’re visiting mom? Oh, how lovely! Tell her about us, would you? Pick up a business card from Mitch down the front, he’s wearing the hat.”

“Of course,” Thomas says, not really looking at her, and Newt sees him trip on the leg of the table and thinks, _Shit_.

No one notices, thankfully, or thinks their behaviour strange as they bee-line for the exit as fast as possible, weaving in and between children happily running around, now with blue banners around their shoulders like capes. Their hands are white-knuckled and laced.

As they pass under the archway now decorated with a long blue banner with the words _END TO MUTANTS – DOWN WITH “SUPER” TOLERANT AUTOCRACY_ written in bold white print, Mitch – old hat man – calls out, “Leaving so soon?” his grin wide and the look in his eyes turning Newt’s stomach.

They reach the car and practically dive into the seats, and Thomas is driving off before Newt has secured his belt.

After five minutes, Newt says, “We donated to those people.”

“I know,” Thomas says with a frown, his shoulders square and tense.

“I feel ill.”

“Me too. Burgers were good, though.”

Newt makes a strangled noise and rolls his head back against the headrest. 

_

The air in the motel room – humid, thick and heavy, laid on his skin like a thin sheet – lends itself more to July than the beginning of March. Nevada, Newt supposes, especially in a cheap motel built circa 1970 and especially in the middle of the desert, does not play by the regular rules of seasonal temperatures.

Light streams in a thin line through the gap in the rose-coloured curtains and cuts the room in half while behind them the opening chords of _Dawson’s Creek_ accompanies the breathy sighs that fall from Thomas’ lips. Newt reaches up with fingers splayed to the cool wrinkle of sheets above Thomas’ head, four fingers dipping into cotton and thumb tracing a short lock of Thomas’ hair that falls beside it, chestnut coils that glimmer in the sunlight and smell of the coconut scented complimentary shampoo.

The other traces the sharp line of his jaw ending at the curve of soft lips, bitten red and wet. 

“ _Shit_ …” Thomas gasps, head turned to the side to expose the long column of his throat. Newt changes the angle and slows his pace, and he makes a different sound this time, throatier, and nails dig into the muscle of Newt’s shoulder blade. The close proximity to his wings brings on a surprising surge of pleasure that travels down the length of Newt’s spine.

What caused the reaction – the groan of the sharp sting of fingernails in his flesh – he is unsure.

But.

Newt shifts up on his knees fast so that the rough cotton of the bedsheets that they lie on, naked and exposed early enough in the morning where it should feel embarrassing to be so, where this kind of sex is usually reserved for the night-time, no lights and no sound but the ones they pull from each other’s lips. Hands gripping Thomas’ thighs that clench tight around Newt’s hips he moves, almost experimentally but not quite as they’ve done this enough times that Newt knows all the hints and tricks of what Thomas likes for the loveliest of results, at a different angle and speed, forcing Thomas to hold on tighter. 

“Do that again,” Newt says and tries hard for it not to sound like a plea, his nose dipping into the cavass of between Thomas’ collarbones. They glisten like the rest of him. Below Thomas’ skin, the light lays dormant, waiting to be pulled free. In moments like this, where Thomas’ mind is addled and his inhibitions shift down a notch, his skin becomes almost translucent and – ah, yes, there, when Newt bites lightly at the skin of his clavicle and gives a particular rolling thrust; the Light.

It pulses beneath his skin as his body arches upward for a moment, and dims when he falls back down.

“Do what again?” Thomas asks, words slurred where all the syllables fit together in one string of consonants and vowels. “ _Ah._ ” Newt shifts again. “ _Fuck_.” 

Good enough.

His wings respond to Thomas like this in a way what is both similar and dissimilar to the rest of Newt’s body. It’s new, and not something that Newt had ever had the chance to experience before meeting and dating Thomas. They respond to the way he makes him feel. For example; when Thomas is writhing under him the wings shiver before the rest of Newt does. Or, during the times when Thomas is on top of him they will flap slightly, minutely, and it is something Newt does not notice until Thomas points it out, usually with a laugh that comes out breathless and always, _always_ , drives Newt completely insane.

That is when the wings are out during sex. Which they usually are, either by accident when something feels _very_ good and Newt loses control over keeping them inside, or when Thomas requests them out.

Thomas’ nails draw eight lines down the curve of Newt’s shoulders to his middle back, and Newt gasps against Thomas’ skin.

“That,” he says, kissing the glistening skin below Thomas’ ear. He catches on, because he always catches on, even in the _back-arching-head-spinning-sweat-damp-sheets-and-moaning_ moments like these, Thomas usually being the one to initiate full conversations in bed, and a moment later Newt feels fingernails dig into the soft skin above his hipbones.

“That?”

Newt’s head falls on top of his shoulder, a moan falling from his open mouth of its own accord.

He’s lost track of how long they’ve been doing this, or how it even started. All Newt remembers is waking up with Thomas warm against his side. The sliver of sunlight trailed up his bare chest and highlighted the edge of his cheekbone, nose and the long, fine hair of his eyelashes fluttering open, and the next he knew they were all the way naked and the look on Thomas’ face when he pushed inside him was _dreamlike_. 

Newt kisses his pectoral and the dip of his sternum, and whispers, “I love you.”

“And that’s real special when you say it during sex,” Thomas says.

Newt laughs into his chest. “I say it to you plenty outside of it, too,” he says, rolling his hips particularly sharp.

“That you do,” Thomas agrees, eyes fluttering shut and nodding. One hand reaches up to grip Newt’s hair and uses it to bring their faces level again. They kiss, and it is off centre and a little bit gross, too much teeth and open mouth, but the brush of Thomas’ lips afterward is what really sends sparks down Newt’s chest to his cock, making him groan. “ _Shit_ , Newt, _please_.” 

Newt grins against his jaw. “Please what?”

Thomas practically whines, and Newt’s thoughts turn to white noise. “Make me come.”

Newt snorts. “So romantic.”

“I love you? Make me come?”

“Better,” Newt says, laying slow, languid kisses across Thomas’ jaw from one ear to the other. “Would also be fun to see how long this can last.”

Thomas groans, his head falling back against the pillow, eyes shut tight. “I’m going to die.”

Newt laughs, his resolve beginning to crack. He can feel Thomas against his stomach, so red it must be painful and, honestly, for how long can Newt deny this man anything, really?

Thomas shouts when he comes, and Newt barely manages not to do the same. Afterward, they lay in comfortable silence, the distant sound of cars and the running dialogue of the Late 90s Drama a musical backdrop to their breathing as they come down. Newt’s winds splay protectively over Thomas like a weighted blanket, who presses his wrist to his forehead and laughs, the glow still lingering in his cheeks. 

_

Clammy palms clutch tightly at a letter rolled into a scroll pressed to his chest like an anchor, but is careful not to crush it. The letter itself is inside an envelope – normally unremarkable – rectangular, off white, postage stamp of a whale leaping out of the ocean in the corner – except it is addressed to _The Keeper_ and it is written in his sister’s handwriting.

It took them long enough to find the right road that leads to the right ski lodge (who knew there were so many, or at least more than one or two) that the search led past sundown and they were forced to rent yet another hotel room, yet again. Newt sits on the bed feeling frustrated while Thomas showers in the small dingy bathroom of the $90 a night motel bathroom, well over this whole trip. The prospect was exciting in the beginning, he’ll admit; the two of them setting out on the road in the direction of Newt’s family whom he hasn’t seen in years and who are waiting for them _somewhere_. It was nice to stop at roadside diners and eat shitty burgers with Thomas’ ankles locked with his and I was nice to be able to make love to Thomas well into the night without the knowledge that he will have to be awake at 5AM to give his weather predictions or check in with management.

It was _nice_.

It was also rose coloured.

And now it is real.

Tomorrow (hopefully) Newt will be meeting his family again for the first time in years, and the concept now scares him more than it excites him. What if they’re different? What if _he’s_ different? What if they don’t recognise him, or he doesn’t recognise them? What if.

The only thing keeping him positive while all these anxieties plague his mind is the knowledge that Thomas will be by his side through all of it. 

(He imagines him shaking hands with Newt’s father and kissing the cheeks of his mother, and he imagines Sonya engulfing them both in one large hug while his hand is clutched tightly in Newt’s the entire time, and he is able to breathe a little easier.)

The shower stops running and Newt takes a deep breath. He stands and collects his key card from the side table and calls to Thomas through the walls, “I’m running to the vending machine, I’ll be back!” and doesn’t wait for a reply before leaving.

The cold air is instantly sobering, and Newt relishes it.

The fluorescent buzz of lights and insects above his head marks the path to the vending machine, down a truthfully shady hallway full of dark green doors identical to the one they will be sleeping behind tonight, most of them cracked or dented in some way, and most reading _Do Not Disturb_.

He notices the shadows on the concrete before he hears the whimpers and sobs belonging to a woman, and a man’s gruff voice hushing her. Newt backs against the wall and as carefully as he can to peek around it. What he finds is a woman backed against the side of the vending machine and clutching her bag to her chest, and a man with a knife to her throat, demanding she hand it over to him.

He doesn’t think. If he thought for a moment he would have considered the following; the potential of security cameras, the lights above their heads, the man and woman’s _eyes_ being able to make out his features and possibly even describe them to the police, and lastly his name, phone number, and credit card details at the front desk of the motel.

But he doesn’t think about any of that.

What happens: Newt’s wings unfurl beneath his clothing faster than he can think about them doing so. They tear through the fabric of his T-shirt and jumper and spread wide in the darkened corner of the hallway before he leans forward on his toes and takes off towards the man like a bullet slicing through the air. The woman sees him first and she screams, moments before Newt makes an impact with the man. He grabs him around the middle and for a moment he is flying with him, and the knife swings out dangerously close to Newt’s eyebrow as the man shouts and swings out on instinct, but Newt is already throwing him.

He slides a good twenty feet down the hall and hands with a hard thump against the wall.

Newt kneels on one knee and catches his breath, chest heaving with adrenaline as the man blinks his eyes open and begins to crawl away from the wall.

“What the _fuck?_ ” he gasps, voice garbled.

“Go,” Newt says, “Now! Fuck off!”

The man scrambles like a dog with its tail between its legs. Newt pulls his wings back in when he is gone and the woman shrieks and runs off, too, her shoes clicking rapidly against the concrete. Newt doesn’t take it personally.

He stands, dusting himself off, and grunts, “You’re welcome,” to the open air, before turning to the vending machine and slipping a ten-dollar note inside of it.

He returns to the room with an armful of snacks to find Thomas pacing across the floor, rapidly texting, and Newt hears his phone chime a moment later.

Thomas looks up, and everything in him relaxes. “There you are!” he says, “You were gone for, like, fifteen minutes and I got worried – what the fuck happened to your sweater?” 

Newt shrugs, casually. “No, nothing, the machine was just being difficult.” He waves a bag of chips in Thomas’ face and asks, “Cheeseos?” 

_

There is a ski lodge but no cabin.

Newt thumps his head against the headrest and groans in defeat, in contrast to Thomas who leans forward in his seat and squints out the windshield window at the pines that surround them.

“It has to be around here somewhere,” he says. Newt sighs deeply through his nose.

“Maybe we got the wrong ski lodge?”

“Again?” Thomas asks, incredulously, “There’s only three of them in this city, Newt, and one of them has been closed for five years.”

Newt fiddles with the letter in his hands, feeling the blunt edges against the pads of his fingers, and says, “Sonya did say ‘the old ski lodge’.”

Thomas pulls over slowly and whispers, “Fuck. Did she really?” Newt hands over the letter and Thomas reads it over once more. Newt has recognised it by heart:

“ _We’re at the cabin on the east lake, where the sun sets pink, five miles from the old ski lodge. Mum works in the garden and dad builds furniture. I deliver vegetables to the townsfolk._

_Come find us, big brother. We miss you.”_

It’s apparently not as easy as he thought.

Beside him, Thomas swears again. “She did. Christ. Could you not have mentioned this earlier?”

Newt looks at him. “You said you had this all looked after, you insisted on it.”

“You couldn’t have at least reminded me?”

Newt gestures sharply to the letter, “You need a reminder then read the fucking thing yourself.”

“Taking directions from a cryptic letter isn’t exactly easy, Newt! She couldn’t have dropped some co-ordinates, or ‘turn left at rock in the shape of a frog’?”

Newt rubs his temples. “If your home was destroyed in front of your eyes and you had to flee for your life, you would be a little cryptic about your location, too.”

The car grows quiet for a minute, the only sound between them being their careful breathing and the radio playing softly before Thomas says, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Newt’s eyes trace the tops of the trees in the distance, and he says, “I’m sorry, too.”

“Did we really just have our first fight over directions?”

Newt’s eyes fall shut and a laugh bubbles out from his chest. He rubs his eyes and moans. “We did. Like a middle-aged straight couple.”

Thomas laughs, too. Then he reaches out and laces his fingers with Newt’s, pulling the back of his hand up to his lips and lets it rest there. “We’ll find them,” he murmurs, warm breath ghosting over Newt’s skin.

“I know.”

_

They find the old ski lodge at sunset when the sky has turned pink.

There are fences up to prevent trespassers yet graffiti decorates the front of the building anyway. They get out to have a look around to see if they can find anything – what? Newt doesn’t really know.

“There it is,” he says, “Where’s the lake?”

“The letter says five miles passed the lodge,” Thomas says. They get back in the car after having a quick second look around (Newt is pretty sure Thomas snaps a photo of him looking out at the view curtained by the tall pines) and drive down the small trail until a steel gate stops them.

“There isn’t any more road from here, there’s just trail and – and that’s the point, isn’t it?”

Newt deadpans, “Yep.”

He holds Thomas’ hand as they walk and relishes in the warmth of him until they eventually end up at a lake and a lookout point, and Newt feels his hope diminishing. “This has to be it,” he says, “There isn’t anywhere else they could be.”

“It’ll be around here somewhere, it’s okay,” Thomas says, a phrase that has turned into his life motto for the last hour, and bends to peek through the binoculars while Newt plops down on a bench, half defeated, the energy depleting from his body. The sun is still setting, yet there is a kind of irrational fear that simmers in his chest that tells him if they don’t find the cabin before the sun completely sets then they will never find it.

Then he sees it; almost unnoticeable and easy to overlook, a pair of wings carved into the tree closest to the lookout area, staring right at him. One of the wings is slightly pointed left as if it is showing them the way.

Newt stands and gasps, “Tommy,” right as Thomas pulls away from the binoculars with wild, excited eyes and gasps, “Newt,” just the same.

Newt points to the tree and Thomas pushes Newt to the binoculars where, when he looks through them, he sees a cabin by the lake, with a chimney expelling smoke and a garden.

“It’s them.”

They all but run down the remainder of the hill, following the bike path that leads them to a small wooden gate. A red mailbox sits beside it, and Newt can’t help the laugh that pulls free from his chest – someone, most likely his dad, has managed to squeeze the entirety of their last name on the thing, having to shrink the last few letters so it’ll fit.

Thomas tilts his head and squints. “What language is that?”

“Scottish,” Newt says, “And Russian.”

“They had to hyphenate?”

“They had to hyphenate.”

Thomas whistles. They continue on.

He sees his mother first, and all the breath in Newt’s lungs promptly dissipates. She has just come through the front door, calling out to someone over her shoulder – Dad? Sonya? – and heads towards the garden with a basket in her hands. She kneels down and begins to pick various vegetables; tomatoes, beans, lettuce.

She looks exactly like he remembers her.

Thomas squeezes his hand and offers a warm, encouraging smile. Newt sniffs and takes a breath to compose himself, and they begin to approach.

He calls out a soft, hesitant, “Mum?” because he is afraid of scaring her, and for a moment Newt is worried that she didn’t hear him, or worse that she might not recognise him, but then she stands and her eyes are open wide, her jaw open in shock, and a single potato falls from the basket and bounces on to the grass.

Up close he notices subtle differences like the fact that she has more lines around her eyes and her hair has begun to sprout fine grey hairs at the roots, and she is a little slimmer in the face. Her eyes are the same and so is her smile, and the way her mouth curls when she says his name, and when she calls out for his dad.

She gasps it like a sob when he throws her arms around her and she buries her face in his neck, his in her hair. She pulls away after a moment and looks him over, and remarks, “You’ve gotten taller. Your hair is longer, too.”

Newt shrugs his shoulders and runs a hand through his hair, “Yeah.”

“I like it, it suits you,” she says, and then a moment later clicks her tongue and calls for his father again, louder this time.

His dad comes out of the house, sees Newt, and instantly starts running. Newt can’t help but laugh when he’s lifted up into his father’s arms and spun around, and he realises his dad is crying when he whispers, “My boy, my boy,” voice wet, pressing his forehead to Newt’s.

They all just sort of stand there and cry for a minute, and it’s embarrassing when Newt remembers that Thomas is there. His parents have also realised this, too, and are looking to Newt expectantly.

“Oh!” Newt starts and turns back to Thomas who is watching the scene with a soft smile and watery eyes of his own. He reaches a hand out and Thomas takes it, allowing himself to be pulled forward, and Newt says, “This is Thomas. Tommy, this is mum and dad.” To his parents, he says, “He helped me get here.”

Something in their eyes tells Newt they might already recognise him from that one fateful photo of the two of them at the Christmas party that had lead to Sonya finding where he was – Thomas’ arm around Newt’s waist, Newt with a drink in his hand, both of them laughing at something out of frame. 

Thomas waves with his free hand. “Hi, nice to meet you guys.”

He heats up beside him, the skin of his palm growing warmer at the touch, and Newt sees him glowing just a tiny bit, just enough for them to see, and understand. They both embrace him, as well.

Newt asks, “Where’s Sonya?”

His mother turns him around, and he sees his sister, having just come down the hill, stopped and staring at him with wide eyes. She is half straddling a bike that’s rusted blue and looks like it’s seen better days, trailing a small wagon behind it, and Newt thinks, _Well that sure looks familiar._

She has tiny flowers woven in her braid and pink cheeks, her mouth pressed into a pleased smile and eyes swimming with relief.

She says, “You found us.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> Fin!
> 
> Come say hi to me on [tumblr here.](http://singt0me.tumblr.com/)


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